


Like Fingernails on chalkboard

by halfhuman2214



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Deaf, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:58:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhuman2214/pseuds/halfhuman2214
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It works like this: You see colours the first time you hear your soulmates voice. That’s great and all, except when you are deaf. Which Michael is. Completely deaf, to the point that hearing aids don’t help. He doesn’t know it, but Luke is his soulmate. Luke’s seen colours since he heard Michaels laugh in the hall. That’s why he hated him.<br/>Cashton knows but he’s their too busy fucking to do anything about it.<br/>Three world tours later, Michael finally gets implants. The last thing he expects is his for his world to light up in colour when Luke speaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Fingernails on chalkboard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lukedancewithme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukedancewithme/gifts).



Lukes' ears perked as he heard the joyful laughter come from down the hall. He turns his head to look at the source of the sound. He sees the darker skinned soccer player named Calum that he shares a few classes with gesturing to another student, he was pale with a dirty blonde fringe named Michael. He was the one laughing. What Luke didn’t expect was that he would be able to see the colours of his uniform in something other than the different shades of gray. He can see the blue of the boys back pack. The green of his eyes. Obviously Luke knew what was going on, his mum had told him and his brothers when he was younger about the colours. What they meant. Michael was his soulmate. Swallowing down his nerves, he walks up to the pair. “Hi. I’m uh I’m Luke Hemmings.” He looks for any sort of recognition in his green eyes. 

He finds none. He just stares at what possibly could be his favorite colour. Well, that is until he looks at Calum, who is moving his arms in vaguely familiar movements. Recognition dawns on him, remembering back to his preschool days as each day they learned a new sign language gesture. His heart fell into his stomach, especially when Calum turns to him. “He knows. You guys have music and math together. Your mum is the teacher.” Calum says as Michael signs. Luke nods. “Did you need anything?” Calum asks.

“Just wondering if you had the assignment from music?” Luke asks.

Michael looks confused, Calum translates what Luke says to Michael. Michael rolls his eyes but nods. He starts signing, Calum speaking out loud. “Study up on Music Theory. Mr. Lewis might be giving us a pop quiz in the next few days. I know what he said Cal, I can read… oh, that last part is for me.” Calum trails off signing back to Michael.

Luke stands there awkwardly, before heading down the hallway his heart breaking. He ignores his brothers taunts at him and hides away in his room until his mother comes home. His entire life he wanted to meet his soulmate. To see the colours that his mother and father talked about. Now that he does, he just wants them to go back to the dull tones of gray. “Lewi, are you okay?” His mum asks nocking on his door before cracking the door open.

“No,” Luke says with his face down in the pillow.  
“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks coming in and sitting at the foot of his bed.

Luke pushes himself up. “I met my soulmate today.” He mumbles.

“That’s great Luke.” She says smiling. Her smile falls when she takes in his face. “That’s not great. What happened?”

“He’s deaf,” Luke says. “He can’t hear me. Ever.”

She sighs. “That’s unfortunate.” She hesitates. “But it’s not the end of the world. He might never see the colours, but he can still love you.”

“But he won’t ever know for sure mum. There will always be this doubt in his head that I’m not it.” Luke says resting his head on her shoulder.

“He still deserves to know.” She says.

++++

Luke doesn’t take her advice. He avoids Michael. The deaf boy tries to get his attention. Luke always ducks away from him. It kills him inside, but he can’t handle spending time with the boy right now.

Calum hunts him down in the library one day. “What’s your deal, Hemmings?” He asks.

“What do you mean?” Luke asks.

“You branched out to him. You could have asked anyone for the assignment in music. You asked the deaf kid.” Calum says. “Now you’re avoiding him. I want to know why. Are you really that pathetic that you have to make him think that you might want to be friends with him. Then just blow him off?”

“No. It’s not…” Luke starts.

“Then what could it possibly be? You have to know that his life isn’t easy. He doesn’t have any friends beside me. He’ll never get to see the colours. He…” Calum rants.

“He’s my soulmate!” Luke yells. Calum shuts up so Luke continues. “I heard him laugh the other day. My entire world lit up with colour. That’s why I approached you guys the other day. To be honest. I completely forgot he was deaf until you signed to him. But he’s never going to believe me.”

“All he wants is to hear. Even if it’s one word. He just wants to know what it’s like. He has me and his family, that’s it. So yeah, you’re right he won’t believe you. But it doesn’t mean you can’t try.” Calum says before getting up and walking out.

++++

Luke did try. In that time, he became great friends with Michael and Calum. They even started a band. He could do basic signs. Ones that they would need everyday. Like asking Michael how he was. Talking about songs. What kind of pizza to get. (Really, the knowledge of that was useless now. He now knows what to get) They had met a drummer named Ashton. Who was giggly and bubbly. And at their second rehearsal, it was revealed that Calum was his soulmate. Luke ended up spending more one on one time with Michael because Ashton and Calum were at a movie, or at a restaurant, or having a tumble between the sheets. In that time he learned that Michael had gone through years of speech training when he was younger because the rest of his family is hearing and as long as Luke spoke slow enough so that Michael could read his lips. The way Michael put it was, it was easier for him to speak than it was to watch Luke butcher his way through different signs.

++++

In a stroke of luck, they got famous. Play shows around the world and singles-handedly proving everyone wrong who said they couldn’t do. Who said music was a waste of time. Who said they couldn’t play with a deaf guitarist. Who said they were going to crash and burn. 

They’re just finishing up an interview, on their way back to the venue. Sometimes they can be tough. Not speaking slow enough for Michael to follow. Time restraints getting in the way. No translator to sign the words. Calum only being able to do so much. If they’re playing a video clip, there're no subtitles usually. Fans speaking too fast for him to follow, or not looking at him enough for him to understand. Today had been one of those days. Michael had to sit out from an activity because it revolved around sound, and, well, he can’t hear.

He was staring out the window, completely oblivious to the screeching of Calum. The bouncyness of Ashton or the unwavering stare of Luke. He had headphones on, the bass turned way up, the volume loud as well. Luke can just make out the thump thump thump of a My Chem song. It still amazed Luke how Michael reacts to music. He may not be able to hear, but he can feel the music. He can feel the base line, the drum beat. Luke falls even more in love with him.

++++

Calum and Michael are fighting. Hands are flying so fast that there is no way for Ashton or Luke to be able to follow it. “For gods sake Michael!” Calum yells slamming his fist down on the counter. Ashton jumps up at the sound, Luke drops his phone, both of them startled. Michael doesn’t flinch, a true testament to how his deafness affects him. “It was just a suggestion. You get lost. Your hearing aids would help prevent that.”

Michael stares at him unmoving, processing Luke realizes, working out the words Calum had said. “No.” Michael says in a low voice. “I am not going to wear them again, ever. I was ridiculed for wearing them. They made me aware of the teasing. We can hire a translator if you don’t want to be mine aymore. I never asked you to be it in the first place.”

“It’s not about me translating. It’s the fact you get lost in interviews and with fans, when you can easily remedy it by wearing your hearing aids. But you refuse to because people who can’t even affect you anymore.” Calum hisses out. His tone of voice being lost on Michael.

“I won’t wear them. Ever. End of discussion.” Michael says back almost immediately when Calum is done. He turns and walks upstairs, slamming his bedroom door behind him,

Calum growls in frustration, knocking everything off the counter in one sweep of his arm. Ashton is up and hugging him in a blink of an eye. Always in tune with his soulmate, it sickens Luke. Calum hides his face in Ashtons neck, despite the height difference. His shoulders shake slightly as he tries to calm down. “I don’t mean for it to be a slap in the face to him.” He starts in a small voice. “It just hurts me everytime he gets lost and I don’t know how to bring him back up to speed. Or when he has to sit out of something because he can’t hear. He’s amazing, doing what he does everyday. Playing music being only able to hear ambient noises. Singing into the microphone like he does. I just want it to be easier for him.”

Ashton simply nods, rubbing hiis back.

++++

Luke slips into Michaels bedroom a little later. He had flicked the light on and off a few times as not to startle the boy. Michael is curled up in a ball flicking through his phone. He’s got drying tear tracks on his face, and a firm grip on a damp blanket. Luke slips into the bed behind him, spooning him until Michael decides to turn around. His heart breaks at the often muttered words “I just wanna be able to hear.” and this time he vows to do something about it.

++++

It’s two years of sporadic research. Their lives not giving him much time to find a solution to Mikeys hearing loss. He thinks he has it figured out though. From what he knows about Michael is that he has profound hearing loss in both ears, something he was born with. Hearing aids allow him to be aware of his surroundings, but he can’t really hear with them. He has to rely on sign language and lip reading for communication. 

He had found a form of a solution. It lied in the form of cochlear implants. It was a true fix, the implants involved a lot of speech therapy afterwards and upkeep for a while to make sure the brain is adjusting to the limited amount of transmitters it now has. He wouldn’t be able to play music with them on, but he didn’t do that already. Well he might actually be able to, it depends on how he reacts to the music. There seemed to be mixed reactions to music. It would require him to wear a hearing aid like device when it was on, which Luke figured is where the snag will be. He’s just hoping the the thought of possibly hearing will be enough to get him to go along with it.

He slides a packet of paper across the tour bus table to Michael one day while they are traveling from one state to another. “It’s not a fix, not by a long shot. It’s a compromise. You will have to wear a hearing aid like device when it is on. When it is off you will be deaf. It would take quite a bit of doctors visits before you could hear properly. Music might not sound great through it, especially at first. They would have to shave a little bit of hair off.” Luke says once he has Michaels attention.

Michael looks back at the paper, flicking through it. Nodding like he already knows some of the information. Finally he closes it. “Why did you do all this?” He asks slowly, trying to form out the words.

Luke sighs, feeling the blush rise to his cheeks. “Remember when you and Calum fought about you wearing your hearing aids back on our first world tour?”

Slowly Michael nods. The dark blue ear molds of his current hearing aids standing out to his pale skin. Management had pretty much made it mandatory that he wear them after a particular nasty mobbing incident, that was made more tricky because of how unaware of his surroundings he was. Michael wears them, but he doesn’t like them.

“You said you just wanted to be able to hear afterwards. This time I told myself to do something about it. This is what I came up with. It’s not a fix. But it’s something at least.”

Michael nods again slowly. Luke thinks he’s actually managed to offend him with his suggestion. But then Michael is digging into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He pulls up the calendar app and shows Luke. There highlighted in red the day after they start a break was an appointment. “I’m getting.” He says. “They don’t know if I will see colors when I meet my soulmate, but it will be better than how I live.”

Luke nods, feeling slightly stupid and partially crushed. It’s no news that Michael doesn’t know they are soulmates. But it still hurts.

++++

They say the surgery was a sucess, that it will be 3 weeks or so before they will actually initate the implant, and even then it could take a lot of appointments before he hears something similar to a human voice instead of the mettal like voice he will hear in the begining. He wears a lot of beanies though. Hiding the spot away from the world as he sits in his mancave and heals. And Luke waits with bated breath.

++++

He is there the first time they turn it on. They all are, this is a big moment. Michael flinches at the sudden sound that surrounds him, lost and becoming over stimulated very easily. He can hear though. He can’t yet make out individual sounds or words, his body never haveing to process the information in this way before.

He gets headaches, a lot. They say it’s his body adjusting, but it’s been months and he isn’t getting much bettwer. The way he explains it is there is this giant cacophonous sound all the time. And he can make out some of it, but it still doesn’t come easy. They continue tweaking. He slowly get’s better.

++++

The first time Michael sees something other than the monochrome world he was born into was a year after their fourth world tour. On a break so Calum and Ashton could get married to eachother. He is sitting planning out floral arrangements with Ashton when Luke throws his head back in laughter. His cheeks rosy red and eyes a bright blue.


End file.
